Next month in Raleigh, North Carolina, physician Charlie van der Horst is scheduled to appear before a Superior Court judge and jury to appeal his second-degree trespassing conviction stemming from his participation in the Moral Monday protests that filled the state legislature building last year. Van der Horst, an internationally recognized AIDS researcher and professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, joined 28 other activists who occupied the legislative building on May 6, 2013, disobeying a police order to disperse. They were among 945 people arrested last year during twelve demonstrations.

North Carolina’s Republican legislative majority has cut education funding, curtailed abortion access, and created new barriers to voting. While all those measures have offended van der Horst, his deepest concern as a doctor has been the legislature’s refusal to expand Medicaid under President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. In this three-minute excerpt from his interview with Barry Yeoman, van der Horst explains the devastating impact of this decision—including the unnecessary deaths of uninsured North Carolinians—and the moral basis for his own protest. Accompanying the interview are Jenny Warburg’s photos from last year’s demonstrations. The protests resume on Monday, May 19.

If in N.C. a household has more than $9,196 of earned income, then the adults do not qualify for Medicaid, their income is too high. But Obamacare solves that. See this Am Pros article: http://prospect.org/article/cruelty-republican-states-one-chart --- With Obamacare the income threshold is lifted to 133% of the poverty line, and for a household of 3 that would be 133% of $19,790, or $26,320. A household below $26,3320 would qualify for Medicaid because the state, North Carolina, had accepted the expansion paid for out of the federal budget. A household above $26,320 would probably qualify for the health insurance subsidy. This is a lousy program because it transfers cost to outrageous health insurance companies, but it's better than no treatment at all. And by the way, we are very wealthy, $14 trillion in personal income each year. Single payer, Medicare for All would control costs and insure everyone, which Obamacare does not, and the Republican plan is worse.

If in N.C. a household has more than $9,196 of earned income, then the adults do not qualify for Medicaid, their income is too high. As the doctor says, there are 300,000 North Carolinans who are above $9,196 and below the poverty level. But Obamacare solves that. See this Am Pros article: http://prospect.org/article/cruelty-republican-states-one-chart --- With Obamacare the income threshold is lifted to 133% of the poverty line, and for a household of 3 that would be 133% of $19,790, or $26,320. A household below $26,3320 would qualify for Medicaid because the state, North Carolina, had accepted the expansion paid for out of the federal budget. A household above $26,320 would probably qualify for the health insurance subsidy. This is a lousy program because it transfers cost to outrageous health insurance companies, but it's better than no treatment at all. And by the way, we are very wealthy, $14 trillion in personal income each year. Single payer, Medicare for All would control costs and insure everyone, which Obamacare does not, and the Republican plan is worse.

About the Author

Jenny Warburg is a freelance photographer and former social worker living in Durham, North Carolina. Her photographs have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, US News and World Report, The Los Angeles Times, People, Rolling Stone, US Weekly, Mother Jones, The Washington Post, Ms.,The Guardian, and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report. Her photos have also appeared in numerous books and on book covers, as well as in many documentary films, television documentaries and news programs.